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tv   BBC World News  BBC America  September 19, 2014 6:00am-7:01am EDT

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>> announcer: this is bbc america and now live from london, bbc world news. welcome to bbc world news. i'm live in the scottish capital because scots voted to remain in the united kingdom. scotland says no to independence. 55% of voters decide to stay with the u.k. >> the people of scotland have spoken, and it is a clear result. they have kept our country of four nations together and like millions of other people i am
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delighted. >> the campaign expressed their disappointment despite significant wins in the country's biggest city and the pro-independence minister admits defeat but says the question will not go away. >> let us not dwell on the distance we have fallen short. let us dwell on the distance we have traveled and confidence the movement is abroad and scotland will take this nation forward and we shall go forward as one nation. >> britain's politicians will have to find a way to work together. we'll hear from those leaders and the people they represent. welcome to a very gray and misty morning here.
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very few people in scotland slept overnight. they were up watching the results come in in this historic referendum. a remarkable night after a couple months of campaigning. the opinion polls put it so close but in the end it was decisive. scots voted to stay with the united kingdom. let's show you those results. all 32 councils have delivered their results. there was a holdup with votes coming in from the highlands because of a traffic accident closing one of the roads that made it harder to get the vots down here to edinburg. these are the final results. the yes campaign getting 1.6 million votes beaten by the no campaign with 2 million votes. that worked out to be a 45% share for yes and 55% for no. what you can see here that is remarkable really and what many people in scotland are talking about today is the incredible turnout.
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85% of those eligible to vote went and did so. that's one of the highest on records. it was the busiest day in scotland's electoral history yesterday. this entire campaign has really captured the imaginations of scots. passions were running high. we do now finally have a result and with all of the night's events, here's ian watson. >> reporter: they are shouting yes but most of this campaign is saying no with results now in, supporters of better together celebrated scotland rejecting independence. their mood was in stark contrast to the leader of the yes campaign who was about to concede defeat. by the time he arrived, the brave face was back and he decided to discuss the positive. >> thank you to scotland for 1.6 million votes for scottish independence. >> reporter: then he told
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supporters to accept defeat. >> i accept and i call on all of scotland to follow suit in accepting the vote of the people of scotland. >> reporter: the leader of the better together campaign declared that the no vote didn't mean no change. >> as we celebrate, let us also listen. moral 85% of the scottish population has voted. people who were disengaged from politics have turned out in large numbers. >> reporter: and the prime minister said the question of independence had been decisively answered. >> now the debate has been settled for a generation as or alex salmond said perhaps for a lifetime. we have heard the will of the scottish people. >> reporter: the tone was set with majority there rejecting
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independence. >> no, 19,036. >> reporter: the yes campaign did get consolation of winning in scotland's largest city. yes, 194,000. no, 159,347. >> reporter: and then with all of the votes counted scotland's most senior election official declared the final results. >> yes, the number of votes 1,617,989. no, the number of votes 2,1
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2,109,026. >> reporter: high spirits when the majority of voters decided to embrace the union and voted for scotland to stay in the u.k. ian watson. >> they've been planning for this referendum for months because we've been accepting that high turnout for quite some time now. 97% of the electorate registered to vote. it did take ten hours to complete the count. crunching the numbers for us is jeremy. >> yes on 45%, no on 55%. a clear margin for the nos. a dramatic day and night of voting and counting. let me show you the map of scotland after this result. we colored in areas where the o nos won. you can see the full areas where the yes votes were ahead.
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but largely the map has been covered red. if i take you back to our councils here, these are the 32 council areas in which the voting was counted. you can see a wash with red here. so many red councils. looking for the four green ones, i'll find them. 53% in glasgow. the other huge councils going no and the first results we had came in on the small councils. all coming in early in the evening. all going no. and it was quite sometime before we had our first yes. i can show you here a spread of these council areas with nos on
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this side and the yess on this side. it wouldn't be a white wash but it's a very convincing victory to those who argue that scotland should stay in the united kingdom. these are four yeses. dundee city and you come see the other councils and you'll see margins increasing as you come down here until we get to councils which voted no most decisively. conservative leading on border with england. this was convincing. as you can see in the end only four council areas going with the arguments of those who said that scotland should leave the u.k. >> jeremy loves that technology, doesn't he? those were some of the figures
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but what about the real people in scotland? how are they feeling about the results of this referendum? we've been out on the streets to find out. >> that's the vote. i was a yes personally but we have to embrace it and take it all together and go forward. >> the most important thing for residents. >> i'm disappointed because i am a yes voter and think scotland should govern itself. i don't know why the majority of people in scotland didn't vote yes. >> there's no need to break up the union. >> obviously with passion comes excitement and i can understand
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that people will be upset with the vote. >> joining me now here in the scottish capital is martin harvey. thank you for being with us yet again. it's fascinating to see jeremy with the figures there. there are only a few councils that returned a yes vote but it feels closer than that. >> yes. we have seen a turnout of 85%. we've seen a result that is not obviously what yes were looking for but 45% is a very large number of people voting for independence. >> and some of the biggest cities in the country. >> yes. the margins in those places so we're looking at not being that
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huge of margin in those areas. >> how divided is the country today? >> i think it is divided, but i think we have already started this process of coming back together. i think that there's a consensus in scotland for change. what that change is going to consist of in terms of more powers for the scottish parliament, i think there's a consensus through the campaign that we needed to move forward and move powerful institution and i'm hearing party leaders talking about that. >> the pressure is really there to deliver because given that turnout, there is so much political involvement now in this decision and people of scotland are going to put pressure on the politicians to deliver some kind of change. >> we've been having this discuss for two or three years in scotland and so we know the argument. we have gotten to the point here where we are ready for more powers. we had the parliament here since 1999, and it has spending powers
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and it doesn't have tax raising powers or taxpayer powers. that's the next step. that's what the u.k. parties are looking at. >> do you think the referendum has been put to bed or will this come up again? >> the margin is interesting. we have 55 but we also have 45% in favor of independence, which is a high figure. during the campaign the yes camp said quite clearly that we wouldn't have another referendum. once in a generation event. you can interpret what once in a generation means. we won't see the referendum in the future. >> thanks very much for being with us. that is the big question that hangs over scotland today. the political leaders all promising to move things very quickly forward but everybody wants to know exactly what extra
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powers are going to be given to the scottish parliament behind me. >> reporter: here at the very heart of westminster high up on the walls, four saints offer a reminder that this parliament represents all four corners of the u.k. a united kingdom still but perhaps a little bruised. >> the relationship with scotland will take quite a bit of repairing because there's been a great deal of polarization within the scottish people and scottish electorate and in some cases venom. things will be raw. there will be resentment in all parts. >> reporter: the first step is to devolve more power from here to scotland given extra powers of tax, spending and welfare that pro-union offered during the vote. some say they should get similar
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powers and in northern ireland there are growing calls for change. >> i think there will be uproar at the whole imbalance that the u.k. constitution now got itself into because promises were made during the campaign. >> reporter: perhaps the greatest pressure will come from english mps demanding the right to decide english laws themselves without the involvement of 59 mps representing scottish seats. >> membership would be english mps elected today so we would carry on and do two jobs. we would be english mps doing the matters and union mps along with our scottish and northern irish and colleagues on other days of the week doing union members. >> reporter: some say it should be english local councils that get more power and more money to decide their own affairs. >> this parliament has to let go
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some of the paths that we have seen in scotland, whales and northern ireland and not in england which is the most centralized bureaucratic model in the free world. it's time for a radical program within england. >> reporter: while the westminster parliament still represents four nations, the balance of power is about to change and it is change that will be very hard fought. >> this is a vote that captured the imagination of the world but other independence movements across the globe have been following it closely. in we have seen people join the yes campaign and lend support and lots of people here from spain and from a region after independence. that's being blocked clearly by
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spain's prime minister. with me now, thank you for joining us. what was your reaction today when it was a no vote in scotland? >> we have been following the yes campaign. i have not slept yet. first of all, i want to say that scotland and britain have created a very good impression of how to deal with the conflict in the 21st century without violence, peacefully, democratically so we hope that great britain can export the best practice to rest of europe, european union and of course the rest of the world how to deal with such a conflict. we want to know in catalonia there is a greater support.
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we got two-thirds majority to have a referendum to bigger figures. >> what needs to be done to change the mind of the prime minister who clearly said he will block any revereferenduref? >> spain has had centuries of dictatorships so we need time to do that. if they vote in favor of the referendum set two years ago, if at the end the referendum is blocked, we'll call for elections of the capital in parliament with an exclusive mandate to proceed of our declaration of independence. >> explain to us why they want independence? >> we have a language that is not recognized by the spanish government. it's forbidden to speak in spanish parliament. we pay much more taxes to the
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spanish state and the return is very few. 10% of the gdp year per year. we have an open economy we generate 30% of the spanish exports. spain is not the best country of europe so there is history and a lot of future in such a movement. >> thank you for joining us here on bbc world news. have a good flight back to barcelona. it's more sunny there. stay with us here on bbc world news. we'll have more including a lot of the social media reaction. twitter has been set alight and facebook as well by the results of this scottish referendum. [ hypnotist ] you are feeling satisfied
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welcome back to bbc world news. the people of scotland have voted to remain as part of the united kingdom. it's a landmark referendum that saw a record turnout. 55% of voters rejected breaking away from the u.k. the british prime minister, david cameron, said it was a hard fought campaign and confirmed that more powers will now be given to the scottish parliament and other parts of the u.k. let's bring you up to date with what's been happening in terms of the market reaction to this referendum result. let's take you over to aaron. the markets, people in the financial sector, will be pleased with this result. >> it's a well used expression that markets made uncertainty. that's what we've had for the last week. of course let me explain this no vote really does sort of clear
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the air for now removing that uncertainty. what we saw on the front of the pound, the british pound, which had dropped significantly over the last week or so, it rose. it rose actually up 1.3% to the u.s. dollar. that's a near two-year high. it's fallen back slightly but still up half of 1% and in terms of the ftse 100, banks, et cetera, with exposure to scotland saw significant rises. we've been talking about the royal bank of scotland based in scotland. that's where it is headquartered. they had contingency plans to move the headquarters down to england. obviously they ripped those contingency plans up. a nice rise of 3.5% for the royal bank of scotland. this no vote puts the bank of england back on track to push
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that button and start increasing interest rates a long time coming. we keep hearing word on the streets is those interest rates rise could happen early next year. that's all going on there. but also obviously big focus here in the u.k. but we also had our friends in europe watching this very closely this referendum vote and in particular in spain. i tell you what, the spanish government breathing a sigh of relief because they've had on their own battle with the independent movement who were hoping for a scottish yes vote. what we have seen is the interest rate that spanish government has to pay on its death decreased so good news for now for the spanish government. that's it. back to you right now. >> thanks so much for that. this is a referendum that's been closely followed on social media, twitter and facebook particularly. let's take you over to anita who has been following the social
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media reaction here in the u.k. there was a time today where every single trending topic on twitter was about the referendum. is it still that way? >> the response has been absolutely huge on social media. in the last 24 hours almost 1 million tweets with the hashtag showing that there are significant numbers of people around the world watching what's going on. let's just take you through a few of the tweets and comments from our viewers. a chance as well for viewers to show off a sense of humor. this is from kevin who wanted a yes vote saying anyone else feel like they just woke up and jantjan santa's not been. andy says yes if you like we're all one big happy family again deeply dysfunctional. don't know how that many people would vote against independence.
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so proud to have been a part of it. and of course lots of people very proud of this huge democratic exercise that's been going on. very thankful to have woken up still a part of the union. i hope we move forward as one country and bring change where it's needed. certainly the progress now of further political change is where the story is moving to. and liz writes the thing is everyone in scotland wins today being able to have the indyref full stop is brilliant. democracy is a great privilege. thank you to people for sending them in. keep joining in the conversation with us here. we'll be right with you throughout the day looking at more social media reaction. back to you. >> thank you for that. don't forget the website. bbc.com/news. plenty more for you there as well. it's been a roll eer coaster ri
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and emotional night for the people of scotland and the united kingdom. let's leave you now with some of the pictures of the last 24 hours. >> the movement is abroad in scotland that will take this nation forward and we shall go forward as one nation. will you help us find a new house for you and your brother? ♪ ♪
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our top stories, scenes of jubilation in scotland as it rejects independence and votes to stay as part of the united kingdom. >> the people of scotland have spoken and it is a clear result. they have kept our country of four nations together. and like millions of other people i am delighted. >> scotland's pro-independence first minister admits defeat but says the argumen for scotland
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going it alone was a strong one. >> let us not dwell on distance we have fallen short. let us dwell on the distance we have traveled and have confidence that the movement is abroad in scotland that will take this nation forward and we shall go forward as one nation. thanks for joining us. scotland has voted to stay in the united kingdom after rejecting independence at an historic referendum. let's have a look at how the voting worked out. we have green and pink. the pink represents no to independence. the green is yes. you can see from figures here just over 1.6 million people feeling that what they wanted was independence but it was up
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against 2 million who decided against. how that transferred into percentages, if we just have another look, it was actually a tad under 45% and just over 55% saying no to independence. what's also fascinating having a quick look at the map. look at the concentration of where the yes majority votes were coming. very specific to the country as a whole. ian watson has the latest for us. >> reporter: they're shouting yes but they spent most of this campaign saying no. with results now in, supporters have banded together celebrating scotland's rejecting independen independence. by the time he arrived, the brave face was back and he decided to discuss the positive. >> thank you to scotland for 1.6
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million votes for scottish independence. >> reporter: he told supporters to accept defeat. >> i accept and i call on all people of scotland to follow suit and accept the democratic fair vote of the people of scotland. >> the leader of the no campaign declared it didn't mean no change. >> as we celebrate, let us also listen. more than 85% of the scottish population has voted. people who were disengaged from politics have turned out in large numbers. >> reporter: and the prime minister said the question of independence had been decisively answered. >> now the debate has been settled for a generation or as alex salmond said, perhaps for a lifetime so there can be no disputes, no reruns. we have heard the settled will of the scottish people.
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>> reporter: the first council to declare in central scotland set the tone with majority there rejecting independence. >> no, 19,036. >> reporter: the yes campaign did get the consolation of winning in glasgow, scotland's largest city. >> yes, 194,000. no, 159,347. >> reporter: and then in edinburgh with the votes counted, scotland's most senior election official declared the final result. >> yes, the number of votes, 1,617,989. no, the number of votes, 22,001
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096. >> reporter: high spirits here at the no campaign when they heard the majority of voters voted for scotland to stay in the u.k. ian watson, bbc news glasgolasg. >> here's a look at what it all means. >> reporter: yes on 45%. no on 55%. a clear 10% margin for the nos. wider than anything the polls were telling us running up to this dramatic day and night of voting and counting. let me show you the map of scotland after this result. we colored in areas where the nos won. have a look at this. the nos in red and almost the whole of scotland covered. you can see four areas where yes votes were ahead.
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glasgow and surrounding and dundee in the northeast. largely the map is colored red. if i take you back to councils here, these are 32 council areas in which the voting was counted. you can see awash with red here. so many red councils. if i reorder them, glasgow the biggest yes. the other huge councils going no and first results we had came in on the smaller councils. all coming in early in the evening. all going no. and it was quite some time before dundee city became our first yes. so after this extraordinary night, i can show you here a spread of these council areas with the nos on this side and the yess on this side.
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again, this just illustrates, you wouldn't call it a white wash this no margin but it certainly is a very convincing victory to those who argue that scotland should stay in the united kingdom. look at these four councils here. the only four yess of 32 councils. come down with me and you see the other councils and you'll see the margins increasing as you come down here until we get to councils which voted no most decisively. scottish borders, conservative leading on border with england. the island councils. but, yes, this was convincing as you can see in the end only four council areas going with the arguments of those who said that scotland should leave the u.k. >> let's get perspective of the no campaigners because we can go over to westminster and speak to
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the conservative mp. thank you for joining us. i'm assuming you are mighty relieved. >> yes. but not as relieved as i would like to be. there was only a 45%-55% win. we started the campaign with a much greater lead and the lead was heavily eroded during the campaign. and the united kingdom is now in some state of constitutional flux. everybody is saying that nothing is going to be the same again. 45% of a very high turnout in scotland voted to leave the united kingdom and a lot of promises were made about increasing powers for the scottish parliament which will affect on how the rest of the united kingdom is governed. >> it was late in the day that those offers from all of the three main party leaders were put very clearly before the scottish people. do you think they overstated the
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case? >> you say very clearly that we don't actually know what these promises mean and this morning the former foreign secretary said the timetable was set out by the former prime minister gordon brown in a great speech ten days ago but actually what the extra powers actually are is yet to be established and the prime minister has appointed a labor businessman in scotland to broker a deal between alex salmond and the westminster government. this is a big problem because alex salmond accepted the verdict of the british people at this stage. he talked about moving forward on scotland's journey. all of this language suggests he's not given up the idea of independence and the scene is set for perhaps the next battle
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between westminster and the scottish government. >> when he talk about draft legislation needed to be drawn up by january of next year -- >> no idea what it will look like. >> it's almost impossible, isn't it? >> no idea what it will look like. the government will produce a white paper first. most english constituencies are represented by conservatives and yet we don't have a conservative government in england because we don't have devolve government in england. there's a lot of promises being made particularly about money. the gordon brown and david cameron and all of the leaders signed up to avow in a scottish newspaper to protect the barnett formula. we have no idea what that actually means because it should mean the equalization of scotland and english spending over time but i think it was intended to mean to voters that somehow this was a guarantee of the big subsidies.
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>> for a world audience, it's a challenge for all of us. what it tells us is that the scottish people per head of population get something like $2,000 each more in public spending than the english get. obviously a source of great discontent there. >> they don't fund it themselves. they fund it largely from english taxes. >> do you think what we're really seeing at the end of the referendum is the start of an extremely heated possibly a far more contentious and unpleasant phase of working out who should have what powers across the u.k.? >> yes, i do. with one morning feature, which is westminster would like to have friendship and cooperation with the government in scotland but whatever alex salmond says he will look forward to picking a fight and shouting betrayal at some future moment in order to
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formant more discontent in scotland about being part of the united kingdom and if he wins another election in 2016 and they have an overall majority, what will we call for? another referendum. it will be like quebec. we'll keep going and going at this and i don't know when it will end unless we can find a completely new kind of federal settlement across the whole of the united kingdom so that all of the component parts of the united kingdom are treated in exactly the psalm way and united kingdom parliament and united kingdom government becomes a federal government with english grand committee of mps responsible for the government of england rather than english parliament. >> that's the challenge. thank you very much indeed. you can hear warning shots being fired for what is going to be quite some debate ahead. the u.k. for now clearly remains intact. it does seem that scotland's referendum will have an affect
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on the british political landscape and for a long time to come. the parliament in edinburgh has been promised more powers. our deputy political editor is looking at the issue. the constitutional issues thrown up by the no vote. >> reporter: here at the very heart of westminster, high up on the walls, four saints offer a reminder that this parliament represents all four corners of the u.k., a united kingdom still but perhaps a little bruised. >> the relationship with scotland will take quite a bit of repairing because there's been a great deal of polarization within the scottish people and the scottish electorate and in some cases venom so things will be raw and there will be resentments in all sorts of places including south of the border. >> reporter: the first task for westminster is to begin the process of devolving more power from here to scotland that the
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pro unions parties promised during the referendum. a huge constitutional change will not go unnoticed in other parts of the united kingdom. some say the assembly should get similar parties and in northern ireland there are growing calls for change. >> i think there will be uproar at the whole imbalance that the u.k. constitution has now got itself into because promises were made during the campaign. >> reporter: perhaps the greatest pressure will come from english mps demanding the right to decide english laws themselves without the involvement of the 59 mps representing scottish seats. >> the membership would be english mps elected today. we would union mps along with our scottish and northern irish and other colleagues doing union
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matters. >> reporter: some say it should be english local councils that get more powers and perhaps more money to decide their own affairs. >> this parliament has got to let go of some of the paths it has. we have seen devolution within scotland and northern ireland but not in england which is the most centralized bureaucratic modele modelist in the free world. >> while the westminster parliament represents four nations, the balance of power between it and the bodies is about to change. and it is change that will be very hard fought. >> an awful lot to fight for. do stay with us here on bbc world news. we'll have a look at how social media has reacted to the independence vote. stay with us for that.
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this is bbc world news. the latest headlines. the people of scotland vote to remain as part of the united kingdom in a landmark referendum which saw a record turnout. 55% of voters rejected breaking away from the u.k. the british prime minister said it had been hard fought campaign and confirmed that more powers will now be given to the scottish parliament. we've had a lot of reaction from within the u.k. to that referendum vote but a lot of viewers having a close look and not least the situation in spain in fact. catalonia to be precise. and we can go over to barcelona now because tom is there where a debate on independence rages all
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the time, tom, doesn't it, but it's coming to a head where they don't have a legal referendum to look forward to. >> reporter: that's right. i mean, you joined me at a noisy central barcelona. the building behind me is the regional government in catalonia. in the next half hour the regional president will be giving a press conference and it will be interesting to see his reaction to a no vote in scotland. a week ago he told me he wanted a yes vote because it would create a precedent if independent scotland could negotiate its way into the european union and hoped it could happen here in catalonia but the key difference is whether they will have a vote here in catalonia or not. they believe a vote will happen on november 9th. it doesn't have legal backing of spanish courts. we expect the constitutional court in madrid to strike it
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down and it doesn't have backing of the spanish government and if you look at the letter of the law of the spanish constitution it says a referendum in a region would need backing of the spanish parliament and given the political climate in spain as a whole, that's extremely unlikely. >> thank you for that. we'll await to hear what he has to say with interest. before we do that though, the whole issue of whether scotland could leave the u.k. but stay in the european union, that was going to be a challenge. hasn't had to be answered of course as a result here. let's see what brussels is making of it now. we're joined now from brussels. i believe there has been something said now. >> reporter: we've had a series of carefully worded statements from eu leaders. one word it would be relief.
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the commission saying a no vote in scotland is good for a united, open and stronger europe. and noting in particular that the scottish government will continue to work and expressed a pro-european perspective throughout. i think the idea of an independent scotland would have raised all sort of difficult questions that a lot of people here in brussels and other european capitals didn't want to have to address at this point when they wanted to focus on improving the european economy. the other thing noted from this referendum with one eye on another referendum, a referendum on membership of the eu is broadly pro-european scotland remaining in the eu. the chance of yes vote in the u.k. improve. looking at the way this referendum in scotland happened, they will also have noted that at times it is more difficult to make the case for the status quo
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than it can be to try to make the case for emotional arguments for change. i think they are very wary of what could be to come if the u.k. continues this for several years. >> we get one answer on the referendum and a whole raft of new questions thrown up as a result of that. the response to the referendum across the board has been huge on social media in particular. we've been staggered by the scale of it in some reregards. let's go with the numbers first. it's the way to communicate. >> certainly and they highlight the intensity of the debate leading up to this morning's results. the number of those tweets on the referendum have been about 200,000 an hour on twitter which is huge. soon after the reality set in. scotland voted no.
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that quickly dipped. people shied away from social media and it went to about 85,000 on average per hour. and also facebook saw some big numbers there as well. i think over the course of just over a month from the 1st of august to the 8th of september there were 10 million interactions on facebook regarding the scottish referendum and a funny tweet also that came out about facebook and that it changed its relationship status from it's complicated to in a relationship. >> it's still complicated though, isn't it? i was interested by some of the mapping which you've had a look at as to who was expressing interest. it is global. >> definitely. obviously scotland is there at the hub catching the highest results in terms of social media trends but across the whole world you can see that very dominant yes coming up across
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scotland. here we have hashtags showing of what's been showing across its world from asia to africa. it's coming up everywhere. it's been quite an intense debate across the globe. >> we're getting used to this social media but a lot of the first comments from the leaders were tweets, weren't they? that's the way to get the first message out now. >> certainly. and that is huge reaction. david cameron's speech had been retweeted a record number of times so that got the most reaction on twitter. and of course the scottish first minister alex salmond to posted a disappointing tweeted. let's not dwell on the distance we've fallen short but dwell on the distance we've traveled. there are a lot that have been
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created. >> we have to stop it there. thank you very much indeed for that. so we reach a point where we know one thing and that is scotland has said no. let's just reflect on the way they got there. >> it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to take scotland's future into scotland's hands. ♪
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>> yes, 194,000. [ applause ] >> the bbc's forecast is that scotland has voted no to independence. >> no, 1,094,638. ♪ >> scotland has by majority decided not at this stage to become an independence country. i accept that.
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>> the people who were disengaged from politics have turned out in large numbers.
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hello and welcome. our top stories, scotland says no to independence by a clear majority scots vote to stay in the united kingdom. >> no, 19,000. >> prime minister david cameron expresses his delight and promises a major constitutional shake-up not just for scotland but for the whole of the union. >> i'm

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